A STUMBLING-BLOCK — originally the trigger-stick of a trap, the baited peg that springs it, and then anything you trip over; the source, through Latin, of English 'scandal' and 'slander'. To Jews a crucified messiah was a skandalon and not merely an implausibility, because Deuteronomy 21:23 says a man hanged on a tree is under God's curse. Paul's point is that he does not remove the obstacle: he preaches it. Douay renders it 'a scandal'; KJV 'a stumblingblock'; NWT 'a cause for stumbling'. → first discussed at 1 Corinthians 1:23